duel with one, and the remorse of both; and not a word was said of the husband's ferocious character and personal deformity[1]. These things, if he is not mistaken, make all the difference on the point in question. He has desired to relate the truth in the poem almost ever since he wrote it; the moral objections of the critics increased the desire; and, indeed, he has long ceased to be of opinion, that an author has a right to misrepresent admitted historical facts. He has often, as a reviewer, had occasion to object to the licence in others. It appears to him the next thing to falsifying a portrait; and possibly even hazards something of that general inconsistency of features, which is observed to result from the painter's misrepresentation of any one of them.
Two additional improvements the Author hopes he has made in this poem. He has delivered it from many weak lines, too carelessly thrown off, and from certain conventionalities of structure, originating in his having had his studies too early directed towards the artificial instead of the natural poets. He had not the luck to possess such a guide in poetry as Keats had in excellent
- ↑ A Latin writer, quoted in the "Amori e Rime di Dante Alighieri," p. xcii., says, that he was called Giovanni the Hip-broken (Sciancato), adding, that, though he was deformed in body, he had a daring and ferocious mind:—"Johannes Scancatus, sic denominatus, erat mirè claudus; vir corpore deformis, sed animo audax et ferox." The commentators tell us, that the brother (a very handsome man) was pointed out to Francesca as her future husband, while passing through a square.
